


the sword of the martyr

by vanitaslaughing



Series: darkest before dawn [8]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Mentioned Ardyn Izunia, Mentioned Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, Mentioned Noctis Lucis Caelum, Mentioned Ravus Nox Fleuret, Mentioned Regis Lucis Caelum CXIII, Post-Canon, Rebuilding, Sunrises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-04 00:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17888114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanitaslaughing/pseuds/vanitaslaughing
Summary: “They just had to go and make a martyr of you, didn’t they,” Gladio said quietly.And from below the noise of people calling for the three of them drifted up. Up, up.Into the sky. Into the warm sun that blinded all of them.





	the sword of the martyr

**Author's Note:**

> set after the ending of verse 1/chapter 40 of tu fui, ego eris

In the end, all they had left were ruins. Ruins and the very weapons they were holding.

Magical residue glittered in the morning sun, flitting about like glowing insects just as the Scourge itself had had for ten years. Remnants of the shield that had shattered not long before the sun rose. The warmth of dawn after ten long years of darkness, just after the first rain that had naturally occurred in a decade. Just the feeling of rain against his skin had nearly reduced him to tears, but now having the sun dry him off was too much.

For the first time in four years, Gladiolus Amicitia dropped his weapon and sunk to his knees. Prompto Argentum beside him only dropped a hand onto his shoulder even though the younger man was shaking like a thin tree in a storm.

The two of them had known there would be no turning back from the moment Noctis returned to them. He would be coming back only to vanish once again, but seeing that magical wall shatter as the magic around them dispersed only to give way to the rising sun for the first time in a decade made it final. There was absolutely no turning back. _Ever._ Just as King Regis had said so long ago—but now they understood the meaning of his words to his beloved son.

Their beloved king.

For a long while, they both were paralysed just outside the Citadel, their wounds from defending it against the Daemons that had been freed from the Accursed’s control stinging. They weren’t bleeding any longer, though one sleeve of Prompto’s uniform had been nearly torn off and was drenched in half-dried blood. Their injuries were gone, they had vanished in the blaze of magic that had made all the Daemons freeze mid-attack, had made them all vanish with a gurgle escaping their tortured throats that turned more and more… human before they fell silent forever. Knowing all they did had not made the last four years easier the slightest, but this time around it was reviling.

Eventually Gladio got back on his feet. It wouldn’t be long before the Glaives stationed in the city, spearheaded by Iris most likely, would be rushing into the Citadel. Whatever had happened up in the throne room, he had a feeling that he did not want people to find this when they wanted to thank the Chosen, the King of Light, for bringing back the dawn. He quietly took a step forwards, hard as it was, but hearing that Prompto was following suit as they ascended the stairs for the second time today was comforting.

The inside of the Citadel still looked the same. All those papers strewn around, but the dried blood on them looked more ominous than it had had in the weak electric light that had lit up these halls when they had arrived here first. The elevator had sputtered out and died in the meanwhile, the lights had gone off completely, and the only thing that guided them was his knowledge of these halls and staircases and the sunlight falling in through the misty windows. The silence in these halls was eerie, it made every hair on their bodies stand as they climbed higher and higher, their exhaustion all but forgotten as they continued. Had Noctis felt the same as he stood in that elevator, waiting until it arrived at its destination? Had the silence felt as oppressive to him as it felt to them now?

There were so many things that they had not said, certain that the bad feeling they had had when Noctis vanished was just that. A bad feeling. But the bad feeling had not vanished the slightest even as they saw him again for the first time in four years back in Lestallum, with Talcott respectfully standing back. He had been an idiot to bring up Quirina. Gods, he had been an idiot. And yet Noctis had sat through all of that in silence, a happy smile he managed to muster on his face, saying that maybe a wedding right after the run rose again would be nice to see. How he said that he’d love to meet her—and in all his hastiness and happiness to have his charge and friend back, Gladio had completely forgotten that Noctis had lost both people he loved.

He drew his hand over his face as the faint smell of ash hit him while he and Prompto climbed the last set of stairs before the floor the throne room was located on.

“Everything okay, Gladio?”

“Yeah. Yeah, just. Dammit. Why’d you not stop me from talking about Rina like some giant bullheaded oaf?”

Prompto stopped on the stairs, then let out a breathy laugh that sounded more like a sigh than anything else. “It was kinda cute. You looked so… happy. And honestly, I… I forgot, too. Lady Lunafreya and Iggy… yeah, I just… forgot. Noct didn’t seem to mind, though. He looked kinda happy too.”

Except that they both knew that Noctis was hard to read when he did not want his true feelings to be known. They both remained quiet as they marched on through the hallway, until eventually they reached the last room before the throne room.

Now that there was actual sunlight falling in through the ruined windows, the extend of how bad the fire had been was plain visible. Prompto inhaled sharply as he drew his hand across one painting; the faces on those people had been burnt away entirely. The only thing that remained entirely untouched and free from any tracks of ash was… the King of Kings, descending to save the people from the dark as the prophecy foretold.

He cursed that bastard thrice over in the span of a second, but not a sound escaped Gladio. At the very least there was hope that banishing the Scourge had freed all those souls from their eternal torment. If they were free, Noctis would be able to slap the taste out of Ignis’ mouth assuming the afterlife did not discriminate between the sinners and the saints.

They both stopped side by side at the door.

There was no going back from that. Despite the fact that they had only occasionally worked together in the last four years due to the fact that Gladio as the head of the Crownsguard was needed in Lestallum and Prompto, once he woke up and healed, had spent most of his time with Cindy in Hammerhead. This had been their final outing as Gladiolus Amicitia, Shield of the King, and Prompto Argentum, the commoner the king trusted. After this they would be a noble and a Niff-born-Lucian-raised man.

Side by side, they pushed the door open.

Much like outside, there were glimmering particles dancing through the once stagnant air. Everything up here felt charged, like it was ready to spring to life at any second despite the fact that the only living beings in this place were the two of them. Sunlight fell in through the massive hole in the ceiling and the wall, shone upon the throne and the sparkling weapon that nailed the last King of Lucis to it. Gladio squeezed his eyes shut, Prompto slapped his hands over his mouth. Of all things. Of all things, his father’s sword. This had to be the most cruel joke in this already cruel story.

Prompto was the first to move forward, but nearly immediately something clattered loudly. He stumbled over it a little, and Gladio opened his eyes to see what Prompto had tripped over.

A scythe. It was longer than Gladio himself was, ancient-looking and gleaming in the light.

He looked around some more. There were countless weapons scattered around. He recognised the Mystic’s blade buried into the floor near the scythe, saw that the Wanderer’s dual blades had been split and somehow wound up on opposite sides of the room. The Rogue’s throwing star, the Fierce’s mace, the Warrior’s katana; and countless weapons he did not know the name of, all of them scattered around the room but in a way that made it look like they had all been thrown from the throne. They all sparkled in the sunlight, all of them deadly, all of them a dreary reminder that the bloodline of Lucis had ended here on this very morrow. Were it not Noctis on that throne, it would have been awe-inspiring in a way. But the fact that all Gladio saw was a grim-faced young man leading them through the darkness, mending broken bonds along the way while still refusing his greens and giving them to the children in the city instead made this hard. That was _Noctis._ Not some faceless king.

He very carefully moved forwards, not willing to step onto any of the scattered weapons. Some of them were buried deep into the dark marble, which made climbing the stairs harder than it should have been. It took him a moment to register what was going on when he reached the top, but it made him gag. A pool of half-dried blood had formed right under Noctis’ feet, his own sword lying right in the middle of that. Next to that sword lay Alba Leonis, the late Ravus’ sword and a pair of mismatched daggers that he recognised as Ignis’ personal favourite and that strange knife he had used after he had betrayed them.

Noctis always looked peaceful as he slept. Angelic, some would say, but definitely always comfortable.

There was a crease in his face that looked familiar, the usual peacefulness gone and replaced by something unhappy that now stuck to him in death.

Gladio exhaled a shaky breath as Prompto hurriedly tried to climb the stairs without disturbing any of them. He put a hand on King Regis’ sword and whispered a curse. King Regis had always tried to protect everyone but first and foremost the very man impaled on his blade now. They had discussed it with historians not too long ago, with a grim-looking Talcott at the table. The Lucii all got their titles either during their life or after their death. No such title had been given to King Regis, and none of the people wanted him to go down in the pages of history as the man who had sired the King of Kings. He had done too much, good and bad both, in the attempt to protect everything.

The Sword of the Protector, they would call it. Now it was buried in his son’s chest, and Gladio took a deep breath. He pulled. Let it fall into the half-dry puddle he was standing in and made certain that Noctis did not fall over.

“Oh, Noct,” Prompto breathed out behind him.

“They just had to go and make a martyr of you, didn’t they,” Gladio said quietly. Damn these gods. Noctis had deserved to live.

And from below the noise of people calling for the three of them drifted up. Up, up.

Into the sky. Into the warm sun that blinded all of them.

* * *

In the wake of the sun and the last royal family of Eos falling apart, the people in the few surviving settlements were all left with the remnants. Their first action had been to see if there were any ships, whether ones that sailed the seas or the air, that they could still use to immediately bridge the continents together. They needed to work together now more than ever, especially with hundreds of people immediately voicing their desire to return home. He had scarce the resources to deal with it, and even with the combined work of all people he could find it remained a complete mess.

Eventually the airships that were in Lestallum were evenly divided among the nations to bring those that wanted to leave the Lucian continent home. Biggs and Wedge volunteered to take care of the people who wanted to return to Niflheim, swearing time and time again that the times of Niflheim as everyone had grown up to know it were over. It had died with the emperor, they both said, a sentiment echoed by every single Niff. A good chunk of them were staying behind—like Quirina. She was the person Gladio leaned against when the sun set the first time, terrified that it would not be coming up again and Noctis’ sacrifice had been for nothing. She was always there despite the fact she had her own mess to settle. Therefore he tried to return the favour as best as he could, something that she appreciated.

Another Niff who would not be returning to her home nation was Aranea.

The Commodore officially renounced her title then and there, claiming that there was a debt she needed to fulfill no matter how immortal the night had made her. After all, she’d said as she volunteered to take the Tenebraens home, Ravus had paid her with pretty much everything he still owned back when he had been alive. His ancient family home was her duty now, a duty that she would not shirk. She would never stop being restless and flying around the world helping those in need, but she smiled her sad smile when she said that maybe it was high time someone revived the flower gardens of the Fleuret family. Just so that future generations would know that the Oracle bloodline had existed, that they had been there in the heart of Tenebrae even if she decided to tear their ancestral home down to help build a settlement for the survivors.

The last meeting before they all scattered was a board meeting of people that the Lucis Caelum family employed to help with the matters after a royal’s passing. Normally they stood beside the new regent in the wake of the old one’s death, but now there was absolutely no need for them. Instead they did as they always did after a royal death—they planned the tomb. Gladio had decided that they would not be returning the weapons to their proper places, but the tombs themselves would be open for the public from now on. The Citadel was a rather peculiar matter, however. What point was there in keeping it around when there were no royals taking up the throne there?

But none of them could bring themselves to tear it down entirely. The entire meeting room was awkwardly silent for a long time.

Then Quirina spoke up, her normally loud and confident voice surprisingly soft. “Why don’t you make it a museum, and put all those weapons on display there?”

That way they could remember the kings and queens of the past, while also dedicating the Citadel to the prophecy that had ended the bloodline. To preserve history for the future, to talk about what had happened in the dark. A memorial.

Gladio and Prompto hadn’t told a soul where they had buried Noctis. They had not even put up a proper tombstone to remember him by; a private little spot in the gardens that his mother had raised in the Citadel. Iris had stormed away before they were ready to close the grave they’d dug, and he and Prompto had remained there rather dumbstruck until she returned.

When she returned, she’d held a few key items that had nearly reduced Gladio to tears. Things that Ignis had left behind in the Citadel before they moved out to see Noctis to his wedding in Altissia. It was precious little, barely more than a handful items and a single set of clothes, but they both understood what she meant to signal with this.

There was no body to bury. But now Ignis and Noctis would be together, even if the afterlife proved cruel and did not let them be together. If it existed.

She said that Aranea’s speech the other day had moved her. She asked to be allowed to turn this dead garden into the blooming paradise that Queen Aulea had turned it into once again. If the sea of blue in Tenebrae was to be a testament to the Oracle bloodline, Iris said, she wanted to make this a personal little place for the Amicitia and Argentum families.

The three of them had wept bitter tears.

But Gladio made certain to ask that the board placed that particular garden under Iris’ protection for the time being. The public would be able to see one day, but for the time being… they wanted to make plans for a proper memorial.

* * *

Despite all his deliberate planning, she made her move first. Completely out of the blue.

They had been putting up weapons in the rebuilt Citadel a year after dark, lingering on the last set of weapons that they would put in the rebuilt throne room, in the hands of the statues that they had put in there. He was still holding them, then muttered that he would do it tomorrow.

Quirina casually suggested that now that this was done and the dark banished, maybe they should get married after all. Before Gladio even had a chance to protest, she’d dug her hands into his pockets and snatched the rings he carried around with him while his hands were occupied with these last weapons.

She was beaming at him, said that he was nowhere near as sleek as he thought he was, and that he wouldn’t even have to ask. Of course she’d say yes.

Despite her being a Niff commoner, the makeshift government of Insomnia liked her quite a lot. Until enough settlements were restored in Lucis everything remained under their control, but the regions had all agreed on splitting into their own countries with joint leadership. Kind of like Accordo, someone had joked, but it was better in the end. And the head of Insomnia would be Gladio, they had all decided. He’d shown that he was capable of leading the people in the ten years.

Then someone lamented the fact that they had never found Ignis Scientia.

Everything inside him had constricted—he had forgotten that they had declared Ignis dead until they either found him alive and well or his body. As far as people were concerned he was still missing, another soul amongst countless others that had been swept away by the dark.

His mouth had been dry as he opened it to tell them, but Quirina had spoken before he had been able to.

“I think someone found his last belongings, much like we found his mother’s last belongings. Unfortunately he was likely torn apart by Daemons much like Rhea Scientia was,” she said with her voice not betraying that Gladio knew more about it, “one of my fellow mercenaries handed them over to Lord Gladiolus before he left for Niflheim. But, and that I believe, we can manage Insomnia just as well as he would have as long as we work together.”

It’s what King Noctis would have wanted them to do. Work together to make the world a better place.

“Fine, fine,” he laughed through the haze of remembering everything. “Quirina, menace mine, beloved mercenary from over the seas—“

She shoved a hand on his mouth with a laugh. “Six be damned, Gladdy, I do, you goof!”

* * *

The next day was less fantastic. He’d gotten Iris and Prompto to help him with the last set rather than his wife-to-be.

Something about this was just putting the final nail in the coffin and saying goodbye a year after the sun rose, and the three of them decided to do it together. Prompto had been in the city because he had delivered something to Iris, and they’d both agreed to tag along.

The last set of weapons.

He’d put the Sword of the Protector in the room before the throne room. Everything there had been restored to near perfection, with photos showing just how badly they had gotten damaged in the ten years of darkness. There was an entire wing of the Citadel dedicated to showing photos that Prompto had taken once the sun rose and before people could start rebuilding. But those in particular they decided were better off in that room just to show that not even this almost sacred-looking place had not been untouched by the dark.

The statue they built in King Regis’ likeness now protected the throne room. It made him choke up a little as they passed, and then went into the next room.

They’d stabilised the structure and then put a giant window where the hole had been in the Citadel. That way the throne would always be in direct sunlight, an eternal reminder that it rose because of the final king.

On either side of that stood another two statues. One stood on the side that the light reached, and the other seemed to stand in perpetual darkness. It seemed only fitting that the first and the last all stood together in this room, even if the statue of the Mystic had to be rebuilt. The Blade of the Mystic would rest in its hand until the end of time, powerless and useless because most people would stop using swords with Niff weaponry on the rise.

The Scythe of the Sage was something that every historian wanted to call the Scythe of the Accursed. Surprisingly enough it had been Talcott, of all people Talcott, who had stomped his foot down and delivered one of the most brutally cold and sound arguments to not do that. Ardyn had been wiped from history by his brother and instead of a brother there had only ever been a monster. Correcting history and preserving it was their calling now that the Lucis Caelum bloodline had ended, and there was no reason not to tell people the truth. They and the future generations deserved to know that before they were the Lucii and the Accursed, Somnus and Ardyn had been brothers. Brothers who loved each other. Brothers who hated each other. Brothers who had doomed the entire bloodline because of whatever had truly happened in the past that Somnus had tried to erase from the pages of history out of spite or out of shame. Thus, rather than having a statue dedicated to the Accursed in here, it was a statue dedicated to the Sage.

Talcott had apparently found that name in one of the few records of Ardyn that existed to this day. A healer, a man who held so much tremendous magical power that there was only one word for him. Sage, wise and unwise.

There were four others in this room, however. All of them in the centre of it, on and around the throne. To the right, two built in the image of Ravus and Lunafreya. They both held Alba Leonis together, a reminder that they had both fulfilled their duties as the last of the Fleurets. To guide, to stand beside. That way, they would be remembered as devout and caring rather than simply the Niff High Commander and the woman engaged to be married to the final King of Lucis. They were both Oracles, after all, in different ways but under the same calling.

Way to the left, half in the window and half in the dark, was another one. It felt wrong to dedicate something to Noctis without putting Ignis there, and in the end everyone had agreed to do as much.

This time, however, they had made certain that there would be no surviving records of anything. As far as everyone who knew was concerned, Ignis had died not long after the dark had fallen, one of the first deaths in a string of pointless deaths that destroyed the supporting pillars King Noctis had one by one—it started with his father, went over to Lunafreya Nox Fleuret and Ignis Scientia, passed Cor Leonis and Ravus Nox Fleuret, and ended with Loqi Tummelt and the king himself.

The centrepiece of this room however was the statue they all stood before.

By the gods they cursed in their every waking moment now, all those four should be here with them. Noctis should be sitting on this very throne, with Ignis scurrying around as advisors did. Lunafreya and Ravus should have only been here on an official visit; two kings and a crown princess having some sort of diplomatic talk.

Instead all that remained were these statues built in their memory, and Gladio had never hated the Lucian custom of doing that for royals more than right in this very moment.

He, Prompto and Iris carefully placed the sword where it belonged.

This weapon had caused just as many fights as the Scythe of the Sage had back then. Lightbringer, Saviour, Guide. Gentle, Caring, countless titles that they wanted to bestow upon Noctis for his selfless sacrifice.

In the end, Gladio’s suggestion had immediately chilled the temperature in the room. It was agreed that this was perhaps the best choice given everything that had happened.

Gladio, Iris and Prompto left the room after leaving that sword there in the light.

It glittered in the sun.

That thrice-damned sword the people would now forever know as the Sword of the Martyr.


End file.
